Chandra and His Students at Yerkes Observatory Donald Ε. Osterbrock

J. Astrophys. Astr. (1996) 17, 233–268 Chandra and his students at Yerkes Observatory Donald Ε. Osterbrock University of Chicago/Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064. USA Abstract. S. Chandrasekhar’s interactions with graduate students in his more than a quarter century at Yerkes Observatory are described. His graduate teaching, Ph.D. thesis students, colloquia and colloquium series, and seminar series were all important aspects of this side of his scientific research career. His managing editorship of The Astro- physical Journal, his one experience in observational astrophysics, a second paper he wrote describing some of the early observational work at Yerkes Observatory, and a third on “the case for astronomy” are all discussed. A famous myth about one of his courses is corrected, and the circumstances under which the “S. Candlestickmaker” parody was written are recounted. Chandra’s computers, recruited in the Williams Bay community, are mentioned. A complete or nearly complete table of all the thesis students who received their Ph.D. degrees under his supervision, at Yerkes and on the campus in Chicago up through his last one in Astronomy and Astrophysics in 1973, is presented, with references to their published thesis papers. 1 Introduction Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar spent more than a quarter of a century at Yerkes Observatory, a large part of his scientific career. While he was in residence there he wrote four books and more than two hundred papers, moved up the academic hierarchy from research associate to distinguished service professor, and became an American citizen. Other papers in this memorial issue of the Journal of Astro- physics and Astronomy summarize and evaluate Chandra’s research in the many different fields of astrophysics in which he successively worked, each written by a distinguished expert in that field. My own paper is different; in it. I try to describe his scientific activities at Yerkes, particularly in teaching, advising and molding graduate students, of whom I was fortunate to be one. This contribution is therefore based on the memories of a participant, but with very great help from many fellow “Chandra-Ph.D.’s,” who responded to my requests for specifics of their careers, and of their insights into our former mentor’s role in preparing them for independent scientific work. I have tried to follow the goal enunciated by my fellow author, Norman Lebovitz, to analyze Chandra’s contributions seriously and as fully as I can, 233 234 Donald E.Osterbrock avoiding extravagant praise, of which he was wary, but talking him quite seriously, as he surely would have wished (and as I always did!). Chandra’s biography, by Kameshwar C. Wali (1991), is an excellent record of the events of his life, as he saw it himself in his late sixties and his seventies. The treatment of his Yerkes years as given there is rather brief, however, and I hope that this paper, written from my own, quite different perspective, will add new insights into his very great contributions toward preparing the next generation of research astrophysicists. Although my main focus is on Chandra’s years at Yerkes, I continue with his teaching and Ph.D. students on campus in Chicago, after his move there in 1964, until his last astronomy and astrophysics Ph.D., Bonnie D. Miller, was awarded her degree in 1973. 2. Early history As described fully in my book, now in press, Yerkes Observatory 1892-1950: The Birth, Near Death and Resurrection of a Scientific Research Institution in 1936–37 its young director, Otto Struve, recommended the appointments of the even younger Gerard P. Kuiper, Bengt Strömgren, and Chandra to the University of Chicago’s young president, Robert M. Hutchins. All three were foreigners; such appointments were unusual in those days when most scientists in American universities came from families which had been in this country for generations. But Struve wanted the best, wherever he could find them, and Hutchins backed him fully. Struve wanted to make the University of Chicago the outstanding power in astrophysics in the world; Kuiper was an observer whose interests were in that direction, while Strömgren and Chandra were theoretical astrophysicists, a very rare breed in the United States of those years. Nearly all the astronomy department faculty members lived and worked at Yerkes Observatory, in the little village of Williams Bay, Wisconsin, some eighty miles from the campus, a site selected to be out of the smoke, haze and fog of Chicago, and as it turned out, free of the growing light pollution as well. William W. Morgan, an observational spectroscopist who had been Struve’s second Ph.D. thesis student, was already on its staff. He, with Chandra, Kuiper, and Strömgren became the key members of Struve’s brilliant young research group. There had always been a small outpost of astronomers on the campus in Chicago, devoted entirely to celestial mechanics, and closely connected with the mathematics department. Its most famous member had been Forest R. Moulton in the early years; the retirement of William D. MacMillan in the summer of 1936 created one of the openings for a new faculty member which Struve filled. He wanted to replace the celestial mechanics experts on campus with astrophysicists. Strömgren, when he arrived in September 1936, was originally stationed in Chicago, but he was so productive and valuable in research that after only two quarters Struve moved him to Yerkes, so that he could interact fully with all the other staff members who were working there. Chandra and his students at Yerkes Observatory 235 When Struve recruited Chandra, his initial thought had been to put him on the campus with Strömgren. Hutchins was strong for this idea. But Henry G. Gale, the laboratory spectroscopist who was dean of physical sciences, had been born and grew up in Aurora, Illinois, and spent his entire adult life at the University of Chicago. He was strongly prejudiced against anyone with a dark skin. To him Chandra was a black, Negro, or “colored man”, the polite term of his time. Chicago was a de facto segregated city, Hyde Park was an all-white suburb close to the boundary of the Black Belt, and Gale would not allow a “Negro” to teach in his division on the campus. Struve, Kuiper and Strömgren, born and raised abroad, were completely free of this prejudice; Hutchins, the son of a liberal Presbyterian minister who had been a professor at Oberlin College, Ohio before he became president of Berea College, Kentucky, had been brought up to abhor it. However, Gale was not alone in his beliefs; the University of Chicago trustees and business agents were determined to keep Hyde Park an all-white enclave to protect its heavy investment in residential property in the campus area, and probably a majority of the American-born faculty members of his division shared his feelings about blacks, although not about a high-caste Indian with a Ph.D. Struve was aware of all this. He was determined to have Chandra on his faculty, and although Gale advised against the appointment and forbade the Yerkes director to station the Indian astrophysicist on campus, Struve went around him and carried on his negotiations directly with Hutchins and Emery T. Filbey, dean of the faculty. The director carefully paved the way for Chandrasekhar when he came west from Harvard, where he was lecturing, to give two colloquia and see the observatory and its staff. Struve made a reservation for him at International House, the only unsegregated lodging place where a short-term visitor could get a room near the campus, cautioning everyone that Chandra was a distinguished Indian scientist, and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Struve sent Chandra careful directions on just how to get to the right railroad station in Chicago, had a car from Yerkes meet him at the station near Williams Bay, insisted that he stay as guest in his home where Struve’s wife prepared his vegetarian meals, and drove him back to Chicago himself. President Hutchins did not have time to meet Chandra, but afterward at Struve’s suggestion sent him a radiogram on the ship on which he was returning to England, urging him to accept the Chicago offer. It tipped the balance, and when Chandra returned to Williams Bay to stay in December 1936, Struve arranged for him and his bride, Lalitha, to stay with the Kuipers until their own house was ready for them. The director prepared a general letter of introduction for him, attesting that “Dr. Chandrasekhar of Madras, India and Cambridge University, England” was now “a valued member of our scientific staff” to help smooth the way for him and his wife in the little Wisconsin community. Chandra was proud and sensitive; needless to say he knew what was going on, and was well aware of the slights to which he could all too easily be subjected outside of Williams Bay. Even as late as the 1950’s, when he and his wife went on summer vacations, he found it expedient to phone ahead to resorts and hotels to explain that they were Indians, to make sure they would be welcome. It was not easy 236 Donald E. Osterbrock for him to live in America, and it marked his personality (Wali 1991; Osterbrock 1997). 3. Courses at Yerkes Observatory With the coming of his three new faculty members in 1936–37, Struve reorganized the graduate teaching at Yerkes Observatory. He knew from his own experiences as a graduate student there in 1921–23, and as a faculty member since then, that the previous system was woefully inadequate. Typically there had been three to six students, spending most of their time working as assistants and doing research, and taking three reading and research courses each quarter (except in summer, when their number would swell as another five or six teachers at nearby colleges and universities arrived, to work leisurely toward the Ph.D.

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